Northside's Halford tosses no-hitter at Cards

RICHLANDS — Northside pitcher Hunter Halford said she didn’t have her best stuff, but you’d had a hard time convincing Jacksonville of that as the sophomore threw a no-hitter in the opening round of the Piggly Wiggly Softball Tournament on Monday.

RICHLANDS — Northside pitcher Hunter Halford said she didn’t have her best stuff, but you’d had a hard time convincing Jacksonville of that as the sophomore threw a no-hitter in the opening round of the Piggly Wiggly Softball Tournament on Monday.

Halford struck out 10 and walked one — three other Cardinals reached on errors — as the Monarchs defeated Jacksonville 2-0 to advance to today’s second round against Southwest at 4 p.m. at Richlands High School.

“I was pretty on today, but it definitely wasn’t my best pitching,” said Halford, whose record (3-8) matches her team’s mark. “I play travel ball so I’ve done better pitching. Obviously, the better girls you face the better pitching. But I did pretty good.”

Today’s action gets started at 10 p.m. as Croatan (1-7) takes on Jacksonville (1-12), followed at 1 p.m. by Dixon (4-7) vs. Richlands (8-3). The nightcap features Swansboro (4-4) vs. East Duplin (8-3), with the winner advancing to Wednesday’s final against the Northside-Southwest survivor.

Halford said it was her first no-hitter, although she said she’s pitched “a couple shutouts” the last two seasons. Halford said she relied on her curve as well as her rise ball along with a fastball and changeup.

“I just tried to keep it different,” she said. “My changeup usually gets them pretty well.”

And while the game started 1:40 minutes later because of field conditions after heavy rains, Halford said the delay didn’t bother her.

“I come ready to play,” she said. “My dad teaches me (how to handle) adversity, be able to change. So I’ve done pretty good. I do good under pressure.”

The Cardinals had runners reach in the first on a walk, two in the second on errors, one in the fourth on an error before Halford got the last 10 batters faced, although there was a worrisome moment for her no-hitter in the seventh.

Alyssa VonDras hit a dribbler in front of the plate and as Halford came to field it she slipped and her throw to first bounced to the foul side of the bag, but first baseman Alex Kirk was able to snare the ball for the second out of the inning.

Halford got the final out on a grounder to third.

Northside was held scoreless by the Cardinals and Kate Reeves, who had 8 strikeouts and 2 walks while allowing just 4 hits, until the fourth. Halford reached on an infield single, stole second and scored after Jaime Stokes’ infield single. Stokes later scored on a wild pitch.

East Duplin 7, Richlands 3

East Duplin banged out 13 hits — all but one player had at least one hit — and rallied from a 3-1 deficit with three runs in the fourth and sixth innings to beat nearby rival Richlands.

Page 2 of 4 - Down 3-1 after three innings, the Panthers took a 4-3 lead in the fourth behind a two-run single by Chelsey Cooper after a run was already in on an error. East Duplin then made it 7-3 in the sixth, with two coming home on errors along with an RBI-single by Makayla Byrd, who was 3-for-3 along with picking up the win on the mound.

“We put together a very good effort tonight,” East Duplin coach Greg Jenkins said. “We hit the ball. We limited them to (four) hits, we played tremendous defense. The last time we played them we hit the ball pretty well, scored seven runs, thought we should have won that game.

“But I thought if we played good defense, the seven runs would win this one. But our girls really responded.”

Richlands first-year coach Mark Lunceford wasn’t pleased his girls’ performance, although he said he had to revamp his lineup because of an illness that had hit his team and left him without two starters.

“We failed to show up, really,” he said. “Made a few errors, costly errors. We just didn’t play ball. Not making any excuses, but we had like four girls with stomach viruses. I had to reshuffle the lineup just to make nine that could normally play.”

Southwest 13, Croatan 0 (5 innings)

Southwest seemed bothered not at all by the three-hour delay as officials worked on the field after rains left it a muddy mess as the Stallions sent 13 players to the plate and scored nine runs in the first inning rolling past Croatan in the tournament opener.

Aaliyah Simmons had a two-run double down the left field line after Hali Botzenhart’s run-scoring double to left field to key the inning, which saw the Cougars commit four errors, walk three and hit a batter.

“We were ready to get out there and play,” said Simmons, who was 2-for-3 with 3 RBIs and a walk. “They were home team. We figured we should jump on them, and when we jumped on them it kind of stayed that way. It’s a great way to start the tournament. Our goal, our absolute goal, is to win this thing.”

In hindsight, coach Tiffany Murphy said she was glad she lost the coin clip to determine which team was home.

“We typically hit the ball well, so it kind of worked out in our favor that we were not the home team today,” she said. “I think I’d have rather batted first…, now that I look back (at the coin flip) it worked out for the best.”

Swansboro 5, Dixon 1

Swansboro made the most of its five hits, banging out four doubles by four different players, while stranding eight Dixon base runners in defeating the Bulldogs, who had runners at second or third in four innings in which they didn’t score.

Page 3 of 4 - Swansboro grabbed a 2-0 lead in the second thanks to a double by Hayley Barlow and two errors and made it 4-0 in the top of the fifth on back-to-back doubles by Morgan Sheehan and Emily Scarborough, who later scored on an error.

“It was great,” Swansboro first-year coach Kelly Franks said. “This is what we’ve been looking forward to. We’ve lost the last three games we’ve played. We had all week to practice so we’ve been working on those little things. So I’m very proud. They did exactly what we’ve (practiced).”